In a continuing effort to improve the quality of shipping fruits, I, the inventor, typically hybridize a large number of peach, nectarine, plum, apricot, and cherry seedlings each year. I also grow a lesser number of open pollinated seeds of each of these fruits, usually to capture recessive traits. The present invention relates to a new and distinct variety of nectarine tree, which has been denominated varietally as ‘Sugarred II’.
The present variety was hybridized by me in 1995 as a first generation cross using ‘Spring Bright’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 7,507) nectarine as the selected seed parent and an unnamed low chill peach (unpatented) as the selected pollen parent. The fruit of this cross was gathered that spring, and the seeds were removed, cracked, stratified, germinated, and grown as seedlings on their own root in my greenhouse. Upon reaching dormancy the seedlings were transplanted as a group to a cultivated area of my experimental orchard located near Le Grand, Calif., in Merced County (San Joaquin Valley). During the fruit evaluation season of 1999 I selected the present variety as a single tree from the group of seedlings described above. Subsequent to origination of the present variety of nectarine tree, I asexually reproduced it by budding and grafting in the experimental orchard described above, and such reproduction of plant and fruit characteristics were true to the original plant in all respects. The reproduction of the variety included the use of ‘Nemaguard’ (unpatented) rootstock upon which the present variety was compatible and true to type.
The present variety is similar to its seed parent, ‘Spring Bright’ nectarine by producing nectarines that are firm, mostly red in skin color, clingstone in type, and acidic in flavor, but is quite distinguished therefrom by requiring less chilling hours and by producing fruit that is extremely red instead of yellow in flesh color, that is oblate instead of globose in shape, and that matures about eighteen days earlier.
The present variety is more similar to ‘Rose Bright’ (U.S. Plant Pat. No. 15,845) nectarine by producing nectarines that are firm in texture, that are acidic and sweet in flavor, that are nearly full red in skin color, and that ripen in early June, but is distinguished therefrom by requiring less chilling hours and by producing fruit that has a much deeper suture at the apex, that is somewhat larger, and that is mostly red instead of yellow in flesh color.